


A Secret Told to the Mouth

by matchsticks_p (matchsticks)



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, OT5, Other, Travel, Vignettes, ben/jamie is probably also there if you want it, honestly the mike/james is only implied if you read into it, if you really want you can also read into barry/james
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchsticks/pseuds/matchsticks_p
Summary: James has a rich internal life. He just doesn’t think it needs to be voiced out loud all the time.(non-linear snapshots of how James gets on with the boys over the years, mediated through how he talks, or doesn’t talk, to them.)





	A Secret Told to the Mouth

Barry thinks James has been checking Instagram on his phone for the last twenty minutes, until he finally looks down from heckling Ben, Mike, and Jamie and realizes he isn’t. 

They’re in Canada, of all places. It’s not the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of culinary destinations, but Jamie has been killing it with the sponsorship deals lately and a food tourism company has hired them to showcase the fresh ingredients and stunning vistas of the Okanagan Valley. 

They’ve spent the day filming a tour of multiple apple orchards, and now the sun is about threatening to go down. Their sponsors have put them up in a lovely house on the shore of Okanagan Lake, just outside of Kelowna, and there’s even a giant hammock on the front porch overlooking the water, the perfect picture of idyll. Barry half-sits, half-lies on it, watching Ben attempt to teach Jamie how to make apple crepes on the grill. Mike’s not even filming it for a video, which makes Jamie’s inability to grasp anything even funnier. He’s not doing it for a bit.

James is also half-sitting, half-lying on the hammock next to him, the side of his cheek smushed into Barry’s shoulder to keep himself angled over his phone. He’s been silent for a while, but that’s to be expected. From the corner of his eye, Barry vaguely registers that James isn’t scrolling, so he looks down to tease him for lovingly gazing at some photo for much too long. He’s expecting it to be a picture of some particularly intricately-plated food, or expecting to find that James has fallen asleep, but no. It’s words.

“What are you _reading_?” Barry blurts out, saying the verb like it means something disgusting.

James doesn’t answer him. When he taps to flip to the next page, however, a banner briefly displays the title: “All That the Rain Promises, and More…”

“Mate, that sounds depressing. Are you seriously reading a depressing novel while we’re having this lovely time?” It’s a bit of banter, but beneath it is something that could turn into worry. It’s hard to guess where James’ head is at sometimes, considering he never says a damn thing about it.

“It’s about mushrooms,” James murmurs. He flips to another page.

Barry cannot actually tell if that means it’s a depressing novel about mushrooms, or a science-y book about mushrooms. He decides on the direct approach and tries to grab James’ phone out of his hand to see for himself. 

James has reach, bulk, and technique on him, and easily escapes his attempts. He’s somehow able to hold both of Barry’s hands at bay with just one of his own, the other holding the phone away at arm’s length. He's still reading it, the wanker. Barry struggles with his whole body, like a fish caught on a line, and James sighs deeply, from the soul. “It’s a field guide to what’s edible and how to cook them,” he finally deigns to explain when Barry wrenches away from his grip and glares.

“Awful lot of words and not a lot of pictures, for a field guide.”

“Well,” James says delicately, “one of the privileges of literacy is that you can read lots of words without needing pictures. Someday I hope you’ll get to experience it.”

He said it so softly that the others shouldn’t have been able to hear, and yet they obviously do, because a cacophony of “Ohhhhhhh!” and “Eeeeeyyyyyyyy!!!” and “You got rinsed, mate!” breaks out from around the grill.

Barry yells back at them about their hygiene and their cooking skills and the attractiveness of each of their mothers, ranked. There’s a lot of ribbing and jeering and Jamie stomps over with a pair of tongs, sticky with caramel, to pretend to bash Barry over the head with them. James flips himself so his feet are against Barry instead of his face, avoiding potential caramel damage. He lies back down and continues to read.

Later, on the long drive from Kelowna to Vancouver to take a fishing tour along the coast, Barry sits next to James in the back seat and spies him reading again. It’s a different book this time. The title is displayed as “Tender at the Bone,” and Barry can’t help opening his mouth to ask.

“It’s a memoir about cooking,” James says before Barry even makes a sound, not looking up from his phone. “Calm down.”

Barry hardly thinks it’s _his_ fault that James has managed to find food books with exclusively depressing titles.

* * *

Early on, after James has been hired as a development chef but before they decide that would be a permanent position, Mike sees some flyer for a themed night at a gay club and points it out to James. 

He asks if he's going, and it’s an impulsive question, he doesn’t mean anything by it, he’s just trying to make friendly conversation. James knows Ben fairly well, but he holds himself apart from the others, and Mike wants to make room for him, wants him to know that just because they haven’t known him since he was eleven doesn’t mean they don’t think the world of him. Mike thinks the world of him.

“Did you assume I’m gay just because I have a lisp?”

Mike weighs the pros and cons of having a heart attack then and there.

His mouth opens and closes with no sounds forthcoming, but before he manages to scrape together some sort of horrified apology, James puts him out of his misery by breaking into a crinkly-eyed smile. “Relax, mate, I was just winding you up.”

James tells him he doesn’t go out to clubs much, unless it’s an occasion that absolutely demands it, because he’s not a fan of noise or crowds. Mike files this fact away, and considers finally learning something personal about James almost worth the price of premature death by mortification. 

He pulls it back out sometimes, this knowledge, when they film on location on a particularly rowdy set or when they go out for a work do at a busy place. He never sees James visibly struggling, but he still makes a point of checking in on him, a hand between his shoulder blades when things get raucous. James leans back into it, which he assumes means it isn’t unwelcome.

Later, much later, Mike eventually learns that James is very much like him in one respect. He takes the mick out of himself and is comfortable with others doing it too, even about things someone might reasonably be insecure about, like a lisp. Mike recognizes it in James because it’s the same in himself. It comes from one part self-possession, and one part having been bullied enough in childhood to develop some sort of immunity. Like the way Ben’s and James’ fingertips no longer sting from the heat when they grab a piece of meat straight off a sizzling pan.

* * *

James’ transition from occasional background bit to regular on-camera personality is slow and seamless. His gradually increasing appearances are appreciated by all, and the top three comments on any given video featuring him are almost always about him. 

He bears the attention with a blush, even learns to get used to it a bit. However, he never seems to get used to the concept of how a microphone works.

“You have to project, speak like you’re talking to an audience,” Ben reminds him, right before they start shooting their 14 and a half minute chef vs. chef battle, even though he should ostensibly know how to feature on camera by now.

And yet, right after Ben has hyped up his Cajun chicken dish, James forgets and practically whispers his concept of Pimm’s poached strawberries and cream. Jamie yells “Great, thanks for keeping up the high energy, James,” the lads all laugh, and they move on. 

It just never seems to stick, with him. It’s hard to capture sound cleanly in a loud kitchen with action on all sides, and James knows it offends Mike’s exacting standards, so he does his best to speak up, to speak directly into the mic, to remember to explain what he’s doing to the camera rather than straight down into the food he’s making. When it’s quieter, when they’re sitting around the table or when they’re doing some awkward ‘up close and personal’ video and it’s just James by himself, it should theoretically be easier, but James’ voice instinctively gets quieter too, to match the ambience.

Behind the camera, Mike keeps frowning at Barry, who keeps running over to readjust James’ mic higher and higher, closer and closer to his mouth.

“Mate,” Barry says on his fourth trip around the counter, his fingers dancing around James’ throat feeling weirdly intimate, “you’ve run out of shirt. I can’t clip this to your beard, you know.”

James blushes, all around his neck, where Barry is hovering. “I’ll get it this time,” he says, and nails it.

Mike is very fastidious about the audio in their videos, which is something James admires. It gives their channel its signature feel, that quality that makes them stand out in a sea of content. Mike is normally so easygoing about absolutely everything that it’s startling, sometimes, when he throws up his hands in frustration because some piece of equipment is failing him. 

“You know what,” Mike says one day, when James has retaken a part so many times that they now have what must surely qualify as an army of silly cream puffs lined up just out of shot, because James keeps mumbling the instructions for the special Easter bunny decoration on top while he makes it, going silent at the most fiddly part, “Let’s just wrap it. You can do a voiceover instead.”

“I’m really sorry,” James says, softly but a specific kind of soft. There's his usual quiet, his annoyed quiet, his content quiet, and his embarrassed quiet, which this currently is. 

Mike looks at the horde of cream puff bunnies, all fluffy dollops and tiny beady eyes, adorable ears each more perfect than the last. It takes a lot of effort for Mike to not think too deeply about the fact that he is now able to _interpret_ different kinds of _low volume_. “Don’t be, I should’ve thought of it sooner.” He has to grab a sweet perfect bunny and stuff it into his mouth to keep himself from telling James he should never have to apologize for anything.

* * *

“Can I beat the chef on his own turf? Stay tuned to find out,” Jamie tells the camera.

That’s it. That’s the concept. They’re filming in Ben’s kitchen at home, which is significantly smaller than the studio kitchen. It's not really made for several grown men deliberately getting in the way, sabotaging each other. 

Jamie takes up space, not only because he's physically larger but also because of his _presence_. He's loud, he's boisterous, he makes himself impossible to ignore or work around. He shoves a heavy shoulder into Ben so he can make it to the oven first, nearly bowling Ben over, which makes Ben crack up in laughter. They keep bumping each other, hips knocking against hips and into cabinet doors, and they keep up a constant stream of taunting. Ben honestly kind of loves it, the way it's impossible to not share your space and therefore yourself with Jamie. He has to reach around Jamie's immovable back blocking the stove to get to his pan of sauce, nearly burning by this point, but before he can retaliate Jamie gasps "Oh no!" like something actually serious has happened.

"What did you do?" Ben asks, in a tone usually reserved by teachers for their most troubling students.

"Something's gone wrong with my pasta dough! I can't tell if it's overworked, or underworked, or what."

When it becomes apparent that there is no way Jamie is going to figure it out on his own, they pause the cameras so James can jump in.

It gets even more crowded around the counter now, with James' tall frame joining them, but James doesn't take up space in the same way. Since they aren't being filmed, James doesn't even bother saying anything, beyond a whispered "Oh, Jamie, you silly monkey" when he first touches the dough. He works in silence, the muscles in his arm bunching and shifting as he kneads quickly, and reaches across Ben to grab the bench scraper that he knew would be in the drawer without being told, because his own is in his drawer back home. Ben watches without helping because he knows James has got it. Sometimes, there's a language between the two of them that the other three aren't privy to.

Secret chef language or not, James towers over him, and it makes Ben feel very short. It's an effect that's particularly noticeable when James speaks because Ben has to look _up_ to make eye contact, to show he's listening. The effort is rather lost on James though because when he looks down, it's mostly at his own hands. His eyes flick down to meet Ben's or Jamie's only in short bursts, quickly looking away again to alight on his mise en place, his dough, his work.

Despite the height difference, Ben feels short but not crowded, not the way Jamie feels. James keeps himself hunched, keeps his elbows within his own personal bubble and his voice within it too. It makes Ben wonder if James does it on purpose because he's trying to be less physically imposing, or if it's subconscious because his presence matches his personality. 

At random moments, usually when he's working next to James, like now, Ben remembers that he knew him first. Back at uni, when he had been just as tall but even quieter, and Ben had _known_, even back then. Back before they had created any of this, before there was anything to choose James for, he had known that someday he would be choosing James.

By the time James is done, the dough is more than saved; it's perfect. He makes Jamie verbally go over how he's going to run the dough through the pasta machine, and then he makes him say it again, before he trusts that he can leave him to it. 

He goes back around to Mike's side of the camera, which starts rolling once more.

He figures, since filming's started again, that he won't be needed back in the action and so he sits back, relaxes, steals grapes from the bunch in Jamie's fruit bowl. 

The first thing Jamie says to the camera is "Right, we're back. We had to cut because I don't understand the concept of flour, but now I have my pasta dough ready for the machine, all thanks to James, who fixed it."

Mike pans over to James for a reaction. 

Ben has to stifle a laugh, and steps on Jamie's toe just a little bit for it.

James has a mouth full of grapes and nothing to say, so for lack of anything else to do he just winks at the camera. 

"Oh, phwoar," Mike exclaims, voice somewhere halfway between regular and Janice. "That did things to me. That is definitely going to do things to our audience. I'm keeping it in the video." His smirk makes it very hard to tell if he means it as a threat or a warning.

James pops another grape into his mouth and says nothing.

* * *

They fly out of Vancouver on a Tuesday. It's ostensibly late morning but the jetlag, the exhaustion from travelling and endless filming, from always having to be on and always being in each other's pockets, and the cold grey downpour from the relentless west coast sky all conspire to make it feel bewilderingly timeless, neither night nor day. 

The wait at the airport terminal is a groggy blur. James has vague impressions of having his head in Mike's lap for a bit, of Jamie making everyone try the candied salmon jerky he'd bought from the duty free shop, of Barry kicking Ben's rolling carry-on and a slap fight ensuing. 

And then they're boarding the plane, suddenly and temporarily more awake with the anticipation of going home thrilling through them. James slides into a seat next to Barry because Barry's been weird about his book choices for days, and Mike pouts at him before sitting directly behind James instead.

After taking off, after the presentation about seatbelts and oxygen masks and what to do in the event of an emergency water landing, James brings out his phone. He twists to put his head on Barry's shoulder, even though he's too tall for that to be truly comfortable, and he shows Barry the screen. It's a guided meditation and relaxation podcast that someone at his yoga class had recommended to him. He puts one ear bud into his own ear, and then sticks the other into Barry's. He's not necessarily implying that Barry also needs to relax, but, well, he's not not implying it.

Barry makes protesting noises about something or other, but he's easy to tune out with one ear plugged by his headphone and the other sealed against his shoulder. Mike kicks his seat, but James knows his patience will outlast Mike's, knows he'll stop if he doesn't get a reaction. Sure enough, the kicking stops and Mike's hand fumbles over the headrest instead, rummaging around until he feels the top of James' head, pats his hair. In his ear, the clear soothing ring of a Tibetan singing bowl starts up, cutting through the baritone of Barry's grumbling. 

James says nothing and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> The book choices were inspired by that video where James gives a tour of his bookshelf and says that he doesn't take his cookbooks into the kitchen, he likes the kinds you can just read. "All That the Rain Promises, and More…" is an identification guide by mycologist David Arora, containing descriptions, uses, recipes, and stories. "Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table" is a memoire by Ruth Reichl.   
The chef vs chef where he says his dish so quietly he may as well have whispered is here https://youtu.be/WYX1MNiwnEI ; it also features the iconic James Currie line, "I'm going to be silent and I think that's okay."


End file.
